Teacher turmoil escalates at Pueblo HS as principal Auggie Romero causes division
The following is an email exchange from teachers at Pueblo High School. As the creator of the Three Sonorans website, I can affirm that no TUSD teacher is part of the Three Sonorans, and Auggie Romero knows that as a fact.
On August 15th I wrote an email to several Pueblo faculty and staff members, which focused on the recently exposed grade changing incident at Pueblo Magnet High School (see below). The next day I had a response from the school nurse which was a nasty rebuttal to my email; it was as far from healing as possible.
The issues I raised have more to do with academic performance than with the dealings of a school nurse, as important as the particular function may be. The nurse said nothing about the grade changing incident which was the focus of my email, however, she did note that she did not think that I had been on the campus this year because “students are in class and we are all working closely together to keep them there.”
Her statement validated exactly what Yolanda Sotelo said on the news. The nurse’s email was a cheerleading song for Auggie Romero which was copied to over 200 Pueblo employees. A few others chimed in bashing my correspondence. One person even accused me of being the Three Sonorans Blogger. The 10 or so who joined the school nurse in her non-curative rebuttal seem to have their heads in the sand. They do not want to hear or see what is really going on. Today I responded to the school nurse and copied those who were subjected to the so-called rebuttals and once again addressed the grade changing situation as well as other major problems on our campus. My email bounced back. I must be blocked out. What can one expect when the Board Prez shuts down a community member who desires to speak during call to the audience?
The issues I raised have more to do with academic performance than with the dealings of a school nurse, as important as the particular function may be. The nurse said nothing about the grade changing incident which was the focus of my email, however, she did note that she did not think that I had been on the campus this year because “students are in class and we are all working closely together to keep them there.” Her statement validated exactly what Yolanda Sotelo said on the news. The nurse’s email was a cheerleading song for Auggie Romero which was copied to over 200 Pueblo employees. A few others chimed in bashing my correspondence. One person even accused me of being the Three Sonorans Blogger. The 10 or so who joined the school nurse in her non-curative rebuttal seem to have their heads in the sand. They do not want to hear or see what is really going on. Today I responded to the school nurse and copied those who were subjected to the so-called rebuttals and once again addressed the grade changing situation as well as other major problems on our campus. My email bounced back. I must be blocked out. What can one expect when the Board Prez shuts down a community member who desires to speak during call to the audience?
The issues I raised have more to do with academic performance than with the dealings of a school nurse, as important as the particular function may be. The nurse said nothing about the grade changing incident which was the focus of my email, however, she did note that she did not think that I had been on the campus this year because “students are in class and we are all working closely together to keep them there.” Her statement validated exactly what Yolanda Sotelo said on the news. The nurse’s email was a cheerleading song for Auggie Romero which was copied to over 200 Pueblo employees. A few others chimed in bashing my correspondence. One person even accused me of being the Three Sonorans Blogger. The 10 or so who joined the school nurse in her non-curative rebuttal seem to have their heads in the sand. They do not want to hear or see what is really going on. Today I responded to the school nurse and copied those who were subjected to the so-called rebuttals and once again addressed the grade changing situation as well as other major problems on our campus. My email bounced back. I must be blocked out. What can one expect when the Board Prez shuts down a community member who desires to speak during call to the audience?
Her statement validated exactly what Yolanda Sotelo said on the news. The nurse’s email was a cheerleading song for Auggie Romero which was copied to over 200 Pueblo employees. A few others chimed in bashing my correspondence. One person even accused me of being the Three Sonorans Blogger. The 10 or so who joined the school nurse in her non-curative rebuttal seem to have their heads in the sand. They do not want to hear or see what is really going on. Today I responded to the school nurse and copied those who were subjected to the so-called rebuttals and once again addressed the grade changing situation as well as other major problems on our campus. My email bounced back. I must be blocked out. What can one expect when the Board Prez shuts down a community member who desires to speak during call to the audience?
I am determined to bring more light to the grade changing incident. It was illegal and immoral. I salute Yolanda Sotelo for her courage and professionalism. There are also other issues at Pueblo which must be investigated without the typical TUSD white-wash treatment.
I am including bloggers and media in this correspondence with the great hope that you will make this issue more public. There is no one here to defend the rights of teachers. No one! Ms. Sotelo is being villainized and she is actually the only hero around.
— — — — — Forwarded message — — — — —
From: Tucson Teacher
Date: Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Lowering Standards at Pueblo
To: “Straub, Kate” <Kate.Straub@tusd1.org>
Cc: all staff
I do not care to debate with those of you who have taken up Auggie’s cause in the grade-changing incident that has been exposed. However, I must respond to a couple of the comments which I received in response to my email. I have responded to “all” who received the comments.
The purpose of my email to you was to bring attention to the fact that Auggie spoke about the Board policy pertaining to student make-up work due to absences/tardiness with great authority at our August 3rd meeting. It was impressive that he had such immediate knowledge of a policy which he had just recently violated.
As I shared in my earlier email, during graduation, I heard one of the students whose grade was changed, talking about the work he and his peers were assigned by the administration to complete within a very short period of time in order to obtain a passing grade and graduate. He was mocking the situation and bragging about how easy it was, as though he had gotten away with something. In overhearing all he had to say, it was obvious that he was given a “Mickey Mouse” set of assignments which did not legitimatize his meeting the course standards. I was disgusted by his conduct and ashamed at how it was possible to graduate students just for the sake of bolstering the numbers. I foolishly thought that pointing out such misconduct would be something that most of us would not tolerate. I was wrong.
There are those who obviously believe that graduating students in such a fraudulent manner is OK. Never mind that students do not meet the standards! It is not OK and it should not be ignored! There are several of us on this campus who believe that this is “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” We will move forward as we must. My reaching out to everyone was to assess whether this might be a unifying issue. It is not. Many will continue to applaud Auggie despite his blatant violations and his on-going “CYA”s.
For the record:
I teach here at Pueblo and have remained anonymous because my livelihood depends on it.
Those of you who have complimented the administration will be favored by the administration. Those of us who point out problems or stand up against actions such as underhandedly changing grades will receive the opposite. You should not condemn this messenger or attribute identities to me that are not mine. I am not a blogger. I am not part of the Three Sonorans Blog.
However, the public MUST be made aware of the grade changing incident and if there is nothing to be ashamed of or hide, why all of the ugliness in your responses? I don’t like it but it does not intimidate me.
Pueblo is not where it should be. Tampering with numbers is cheating. (Discipline, absences, tardiness, AP, failures, graduation rate are all numbers which have been grossly contaminated.) Our kids are not doing as well as they are capable. We short change them by lowering the academic standards; by having them take a general education math course while giving them credit for AP math; by pressuring teachers to pass athletes so that they can remain playing while they are actually failing; by recruiting or accepting athletes who are from other high schools while violating AIA rules; by changing the failing grades of several seniors the day before graduation; and, in general, by corrupting a high school with one easy-out after another. It is not right. It may be easy but it is not right!
My internal efforts to address the issues has failed. I, along with others who see the facts for what they are, will pursue other avenues.
It is interesting that Kate, a nurse and not an educator , is the one who took up the cause for Auggie. No band aid can fix this.
On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 10:29 AM, Straub, Kate <Kate.Straub@tusd1.org> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
I just received this ugly anonymous email in my inbox. Since this email was sent to everyone at PHS I would like to take this opportunity to send out a global email in response.
I am asking everyone who supports Dr. Romero and his efforts at this school to write a communal letter of support (or individual letters of support if you prefer) to the press and to the TUSD school board. I am sick and tired of all the negative publicity and ugly comments having an unfettered say, while the majority of us who support and appreciate Dr. Romero remain silent and unheard.
I have worked here nine years in October and since Dr. Romero became principal the whole environment at the school has changed. We are now at our highest enrollment ever. Dr. Romero not only cherishes and supports the students, he cherishes and supports the staff.
I have presented him with extremely complex cases involving students and staff and he has never let the students, their parents or the health staff/teachers involved with the case down. He has a brilliant intellect which he uses to work with the team and the student/family to resolve the issue at hand in a fair and helpful manner where we all leave feeling we gave our best to the student and gained the most positive outcome possible.
Dr. Romero does not think in the box, he does not make decisions that protect his position. He always puts the student first and thus we all win.
I don’t think the author of the email has been on PHS campus this year. The students are in class and we are all working closely together to keep them there. In order to do this we need to continue working as a team in a positive and open manner. We all want the same result, we want the students to succeed and be able to do their best.
Dr. Romero deserves our support and I am honored to work with him.
Kate Straub
School Nurse
From: Tucson Teacher
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2016 8:11 PM
Subject: Lowering Standards at Pueblo
Augustine Romero:
Subject: Lowering Standards at Pueblo Magnet High School
It does not work to pit teachers against one another with your subtly sarcastic comments during the meetings you hold with teachers as you have done during our first week back to school. We are all smart enough to know that you are throwing Yolanda Sotelo under the bus when you instruct us not to “suppress” the curriculum. Come on Auggie, you are not the only one with a brain on our campus and your sarcasm is not only immature, it is also rude. Quite frankly, it seems that your brain has been hijacked by your ego.
In your meeting with teachers the first week of school one of us said that we did not want to be bombarded with students at the end of the school year demanding that their grades be changed, especially when they are failing. (As in the case with Yolanda Sotelo.) The question was posed about how long kids have to make up work. You responded by quoting TUSD policy and said that the policy allows “one day for each day missed to make-up work.” Where was this knowledge about the policy in the recent situation with Yolanda? From what we understand you did not apply the policy to the 6 kids who you gave passing grades to when their teacher had failed them. So, Auggie, stop talking out of both sides of your mouth. It eventually catches up with you.
On graduation day, I heard one of students whose grade you had changed bragging that they really didn’t have to do much to “get by” and that you had let them all “off easy” and that the assignments they turned in were “doss”- that anyone could have done the assignments in their sleep. The student was all puffed out acting as though he had gotten away with something. He had and you facilitated it all. See Auggie, none of us blame the six students. We blame you.
Instead of boosting the academic standards at our school, you have lowered them. Teachers are pressured to pass kids all of the time and out of fear many teachers succumb to the pressures to pass kids who have actually failed their classes.
Athletes on the Pueblo campus now have a super advocate in you but in a very dishonest and shady way. If athletes do not pass they should not play and you know it. Of course, since you bend the rules for the six students just before graduation, the word is now out! Pueblo will become known as the Pueblo Pass School.
Your motto seems to be “by any means” even when your actions are immoral or even illegal. Enough is enough.
Our school has turned into a zoo under your leadership. Kids are loitering the campus all day long during classes and you and your team do nothing. (One of them could not stand it anymore and left. We are glad for her!) How can academic standards be raised when students are not in their classes and allowed to freely wonder the campus? We input tardiness and absences and then we find that they have been deleted from the system. We send students to in-school suspension and there is no account of it…really, no input showing that they were in in-school suspension. It appears that they were in class when they were not. When send kids to your office with serious concerns, hoping that you will follow-up and you don’t.
The discipline fiasco on the Pueblo campus has nothing to do with the USP; it is all based on the administration’s desire to suppress the real discipline infractions. Your objective is to increase the graduation numbers, even if it means graduating students who did not meet the requirements, and shrink any numbers that put shade on you and Pueblo (discipline numbers fall into this category).For three years we have heard that the changes in dealing with discipline are all due to the court order/USP and most have figured out that what you have said is a lie. In doing some research, the GSRR is part of the USP and you and your assistants are NOT implementing the GSRR. You ignore most of the discipline problems on campus until something blows up. So it is not the USP that is to blame. It is your failure to implement the USP. It is your failure to support your teachers in dealing with one discipline violation after another and it is your failure for not reporting the discipline that has taken correctly.
During our August 3rd meeting with the teachers you said that the Special Master wants the teachers at the school to come up with a plan for discipline. We very much doubt that the Special Master is giving you directives to pass onto us. This is part of your pattern of telling lies that you think will benefit you. Several times you have gone to people who you know spread rumors and “inform” them that you have applied for a superintendent’s position and that you are a top candidate. Then somehow, you mysteriously “drop out” because you “really want to stay at Pueblo.” Or you tell lies about why you are away from campus more than you are on it (which is part of the reason it is a zoo). Stop with the lies. Everyone sees right through them.
Yolanda is the latest causality in all of this mess. It has probably shocked you that she is fighting back. Understand that we are behind her! No administrator in TUSD has the right to willy-nilly change the grades of students and then defame the person who took the right action. You failed to follow TUSD’s own policy and there should be consequences for it. Oh, sure you have succeeded in fooling some of the more naïve teachers because they have not gained tenure or because they are looking to gain career recognition from you which they think will make them advance. They will see the light.
Based on dialogue at Pueblo with my peers, I believe that I am expressing the opinion of many- but not all. I will not sign my name to this letter based on the type of retaliation I have seen you and other District officials take.
I have no hope for you changing anything on your own! This is why I believe that what is happening at Pueblo must be broadly broadcast.
Note:
I used the emails on the Pueblo website which are outdated. Auggie can’t even get this part of the job right at a Communications and Technology Magnet School.
Originally published at TSON News.
